By Brendon Desrochers

      When most people think of Frisbees, the first thought that likely comes to mind is an afternoon in the park tossing one around with friends and maybe the family dog.

      Add to that a football-length field, cleats, world-class athletes and an organized, eight-team league and you have RIPUL.

      Saturday marked the concluding playoff tournament for the Rhode Island People’s Ultimate League, an Ultimate Frisbee league that runs from early June to the middle of August.

      “I’ve been running the league since ’96,” says Matthew Brier, 35, the league’s organizer.  “We’ve got eight teams; there’s about 135 people in the league.  Things run smoothly—it seems like it just runs automatically now.”

      Brier, who has been running the league since its inception, has seen it grow and flourish in that time.

      “We started out down at India Point Park [in Providence],” says Brier, who picked up the game at Vermont Law School.  “We had four fields and we’ve jumped up to eight in the last three years.”

      “Our summer league has gotten better over time,” adds Evan Pearce, 22, of Warwick.  “We started out and we only had seven games and now we’re up to fourteen.  We have a couple different sets of fields and basically have a lot of fun.”

      The league, which plays at Moses Brown and Brown University in Providence as well as the Wheeler School athletic complex in Seekonk, Mass., features some of the top players from around New England—players known in Ultimate circles for their killer hucks and lay-out D’s.  It also has players of every skill level, creating a great mixture of veterans and newcomers to the sport.

      “It’s a really great combination of the new players and some really high-caliber players,” says Nathan Jepson, 29, a native of Warwick who has played Ultimate for 13 years.  “People learn how to play and develop.”

      Pearce adds, “You get a lot of different people of many different talent levels--from people who go and play with the highest level of club teams that win nationals and win worlds to people who have never played before.”

      Backing this point, RIPUL alumns Justin Safdie and Fortunat Mueller will be representing the United States in World Games 2001 in Akita, Japan, August 19-21.

      “Some people don’t get a chance to play normally ’cause they’re not into the whole really competitive club scene,” Pearce, a recent graduate of URI, continues.  “They get a chance to play in a fun league that’s based more around Spirit than destroying the other team.”

      From Colin Smith’s trumpet playing for the green team to the Popsicles that Brian Sauro brings for his black team and its opponents, there is plenty of fun to go around.  Every game ends with handshakes and congratulations followed by each team cheering the other.

      Along with players of varying skill level, RIPUL also brings together people from diverse backgrounds.

      “I have a lot of friends from summer league especially—people I wouldn’t normally meet, people from all walks of life,” says Pearce.  “In the summer league, we’ve got doctors and lawyers and air-traffic controllers and college students and graduate-school students.  It’s great to meet people who do all sorts of disparate things like that.”

      Ultimate Frisbee has long been a fringe sport, one associated with long-haired hippies on college campuses.  That perception is changing slowly, but the sport maintains certain principles that separate it from mainstream team sports like basketball and football.

      “Above all, the most important thing is, unlike any other major sport, Ultimate’s all based on Spirit of the Game,” says Brier.  “We have to make our own calls.  It’s not like in basketball, where fouling the guy on purpose is part of the strategy of the game.  That’s not allowed.  Every foul is considered to be unintentional.  I think that sets Ultimate apart from any other sport out there.”

      Simply defined, Spirit of the Game is optimum sportsmanship.  For instance, an opponent with better field perspective can make a decision on whether a player caught a disc in bounds or not.  If there is a disagreement about any call, the disc might simply be sent back to the thrower and play continued from there.

      Perhaps a description of the sport itself is in order, especially for those who are perplexed by the “killer hucks and lay-outs D’s” previously mentioned.

      Ultimate is most often a seven-on-seven game played on a field 120 yards long and 40 yards wide, although there are variations.  There are two endzones that run the width of the field and are 25 yards deep.

      The object of the game is to have a team member catch the disc in the opponent’s endzone.  Each of these scores is worth one point.  Games are often played to 13 or 15 with halftime coming once one team get more than half the points needed to win the game (Halftime in a 13-point-game comes once one team scores seven points.).

      Each point begins with one team pulling to the other.  A pull is a throw from one goal line that is played by the other team wherever the disc lands or is caught.

      Players cannot move once they have caught the disc and have ten seconds to throw it.  The player “marking” or guarding the person with the disc counts off the ten seconds and generally tries to force the player with the disc to throw to one side of the field.

      When a disc is thrown and is not caught, caught out of bounds or caught by an opposing team’s player, the opposing team takes possession.

      The Ultimate Players Association, the main promoting body of Ultimate defines every aspect of play, like rules against double-teaming players or setting picks.  The UPA’s website is <www.upa.org>.

So what does an Ultimate game look like?

      Ultimate is an exciting sport that allows players to show off their skills and athleticism.  A common sight at a game is the lay-out or mid-air dive to catch or “D” (knock away) a thrown disc.  Nothing elicits an ovation from the sideline more quickly than a lay-out D just in front of an offensive player who is about to catch the disc.

      Offensively, different teams have their own styles often mixing between two primary styles.

      Some like to methodically work the disc up the field with short throws.  Players form a “stack,” or line of players, and the handlers, those that handle the disc most often, look to throw to players cutting from the stack.  After the first throw, teams have a second player already cutting and ready to catch the disc.  This “flow” offense is very pleasing to the spectator and, when run effectively, has devastating consequences for the defense.

      Just as devastating and fan friendly are the teams who prefer the long throw or huck.  Teams with good speed and/or height often try this quick-strike style of offense in which a handler throws to a player breaking deep.  While these throws are lower percentage than the short connections, one of them can move the disc the length of the field.  Fans and players alike enjoy the one-on-one, mid-air acrobatics that often result from a battle to catch the huck.

      Defenses have their ways to combat such strategies.  In man defense, communication is often the best weapon for a defense as defenders can come to the aid of their teammates and prevent long gains by the offense.  Athleticism and speed are the markers of the great defenders.  The best are masters at anticipating what the offensive player will do before he or she does it.

      Defenses also have the option to play a zone or “Z.”  Zones try to make teams complete more throws before scoring by forcing the disc to swing from side to side with few open throws upfield.  Zones are most effective in windy conditions as the wind causes the light, plastic disc move in unpredictable ways, making completing a string of throws increasingly difficult.  The wind can define games in some instances as upwind scores can be equated with service breaks in tennis.

      Good throwers of the disc have various types of throws to combat the defenders.  There is the standard backhand that is complemented by the essential forehand, a quick wrist snap, which is usually given its speed by the middle finger on the rim of the disc.  Both throws can be made to curve inside-out, outside-in or not at all, depending on what the situation dictates.

      Other, lesser-used throws can also be effective when thrown at the right time.  The most common of these are the hammer, scoober, thumber and push pass.

      Ultimate has its roots at the collegiate level, so it serves to reason that students from some of America’s most prestigious colleges fill RIPUL rosters.  Students at Brown, Harvard (Mass.), Dartmouth (N.H.) and Northwestern (Ill.), among other schools, played RIPUL this summer.

      The college championships, which were held at Tufts (Mass.) this past spring, are always a highlight of the Ultimate schedule.  Carleton (Minn.) defeated Colorado to win the men’s division, taking the title away from the 2000 champion, Brown.  Georgia defeated Stanford (Calif.) to win the women’s title.

      There are also club championships held in the fall, which features Rhode Island teams like the Chowderheads, of which Jepson is a member.

      Ultimate gives people who have long been involved in individual sports the chance to get the feel of a team sport.

      “I did track at Tollgate High School for four years and cross country for four years,” says Pearce, who begins his doctorate in chemistry this fall at Stanford.  “So, after being in something where I was by myself, I was starting to do track at college, but then I found the Ultimate team and I just love the team aspect so much.  It was so much more fun for me.”

      Summer league is co-ed, as two women are on the field at all times.  Sarah Pearce was often one of the women on the field for her brother’s team this year.  Pearce, who is entering her junior year at the University of Delaware, has enjoyed her RIPUL experience.

      “I think I learned a lot this summer and improved a lot.  If you put a lot of hard work in, you can definitely see the results right away,” says Pearce, who plans on playing with her school team in the upcoming scholastic year.

      Anyone who plays RIPUL will make it clear that, while winning is important, camaraderie and friendship are more so.  To this end, players gather after game nights (Monday and Wednesday) at Oliver’s on the East Side of Providence for food and conversation.

      “We play a game,” says Brier.  “Now what we’re gonna do is go out to the bar and have a beer together.”